SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS

Oil palm plantations a ‘threat to global health,’ says study on outbreaks

Published

4 years ago

June 4, 2021

From Ebola in Africa to malaria in Brazil to tick-borne illnesses in the U.S., there is a common thread linking outbreaks of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases: fluctuating forest cover, according to a recent study.
Deforestation and even increases in green cover can fuel the rise of diseases, the research shows, citing the link between oil palm plantations and outbreaks of malaria and dengue as a case in point.
The study examined linkages between forest cover changes with vector-borne and zoonotic diseases between 1990 and 2016 and found that outbreaks of both types of infections have increased.
The evidence that human health can suffer even as a result of misguided afforestation or plantation shows that more research is needed on the role of forests in modulating diseases.

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised plenty of questions about whether the planet’s declining health is what ails humans. The answer is yes, and it’s not a metaphorical response.

Distorting the blue planet’s green cover, hollowing out dense forests and tacking tree plantations at will fuels the rise of diseases, a growing body of research shows. From Ebola in Africa to malaria outbreaks in Brazil to tick-borne illnesses in the U.S., there is a common thread: fluctuating forest cover, a recent study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science has found.

The study authors spotlight an overlooked hazard: oil palm plantations, which they call a “threat to global health.”

COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease, one where the pathogen emerges in animals and spills over into humans. How the SARS-CoV-2 virus made this jump is still under investigation, but one theory posits that a bat coronavirus entered human populations via an intermediary host. This scenario has raised concerns about the health risks related to wildlife trade and human incursions into natural habitats.

The new study examined linkages between deforestation and reforestation with vector-borne and zoonotic diseases between 1990 and 2016. Vector-borne diseases including malaria, dengue and Lyme disease are transmitted by insects like mosquitoes, ticks and fleas. Both vector-borne and zoonotic diseases occurred more frequently in this period, with the former seeing a marked surge.

Greener tropical countries like Brazil and Indonesia that report high deforestation rates suffer more frequent vector-borne disease outbreaks, the analysis found. Data from other nations like Peru and Bolivia in South America; the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon in Africa; and Myanmar and Malaysia in Southeast Asia, support this conclusion.

A quarter of all forest lost between 2001 and 2015 was cleared for the production of commodities like beef, soy, palm oil, and wood fiber, according to a 2018 study. Plantations of these crops have metastasized in some of the most forest-rich countries in the world. Indonesia is the world’s largest palm oil producer, and Brazil churns out most of the global supply of soybeans, and a large chunk of its beef.

In Southeast Asia, replacing forests with oil palm plantations was found to boost the abundance of Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit malaria. In Malaysian Borneo, agricultural land replacing forests led to shrinking populations of Aedes niveus but the swelling of A. albopictus, both dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

Though changes in forest cover create conditions favorable for maladies, the relationship is not straightforward. Malaria experts found that outbreaks are linked to forest clearing, especially at deforestation frontiers. But in some cases, the rise in malaria cases also leads to a dip in deforestation as those who log forests lose labor days owing to illness, creating a convoluted feedback loop.

Mapping of Ebola outbreaks in western and central Africa revealed that index cases were more likely to occur in forest fragmentation hotspots. When closed forests are pried open, amplifying people’s exposure to wild animals and pathogens, it raises the risk of zoonotic infection spillover.

The harmful impacts don’t just arise from deforestation, the research found; disease spread is also associated with unsuitable afforestation. Though such efforts can promote biodiversity and benefit carbon sequestration, they might have unintended consequences. In the U.S., for example, planting trees and growing green cover supported the resurrection of deer populations but also led to an increase in tick populations.

This was true of temperate-zone countries, which had lower forest cover. But the researchers also saw this pattern in places like China and Vietnam, which have embarked on vigorous reforestation drives. However, the authors caution that their data on the increase in green cover don’t differentiate between commodity plantations, afforestation, or abandoned agricultural lands.

The limitations of satellite imagery are only part of the problem. There is no consensus about what makes a forest.

There is no global treaty dedicated to forests. The International Tropical Timber Agreement is the only global pact that deals directly with forests, but it focuses on the sustainable timber trade. The Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares (865 million acres) by 2030, and the New York Declaration for stopping deforestation are both voluntary commitments that encompass restoration of degraded land.

Adherence to these goals has encouraged countries to launch massive tree-planting drives and led to the conversion of grasslands, important ecosystems in their own right, into forests. The authors are calling for an update to the FAO’s definition of a forest so that it does not promote the expansion of forests in areas that were historically not forested.

The evidence that human health can suffer even as a result of misguided afforestation or plantation shows that more research is needed about the role of forests in modulating diseases.

Citations:

Morand, S., & Lajaunie, C. (2021). Outbreaks of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases are associated with changes in forest cover and oil palm expansion at global scale. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8. doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.661063

Curtis, P. G., Slay, C. M., Harris, N. L., Tyukavina, A., & Hansen, M. C. (2018). Classifying drivers of global forest loss. Science, 361(6407), 1108-1111. doi:10.1126/science.aau3445

MacDonald, A. J., & Mordecai, E. A. (2019). Amazon deforestation drives malaria transmission, and malaria burden reduces forest clearing: A retrospective study. The Lancet Planetary Health, 3. doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(19)30156-1

Original Source: MONGABAY

SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS

Top 10 agribusiness giants: corporate concentration in food & farming in 2025

Published

2 months ago

August 28, 2025

witnessradio.org

ETC Group’s 2022 publication “Food Barons” exposed the increasing concentration of corporate power in the industrial food system.¹ It documented the rise of mergers and acquisitions, the increasing influence of finance capital, and the penetration of digitalisation and other disruptive technologies across corporate supply chains.²

During the Covid pandemic and the subsequent outbreak of war in Ukraine, these corporations showed how, during times of global shocks or crises, they could use their monopoly power to make obscene profits, with huge impacts on people the world over.³

Three years later, war persists in Ukraine and new wars and genocides are raging in Palestine, Sudan and the DR Congo. The US is pursuing a global trade war, global temperatures are smashing record highs, and diseases with pandemic potential (like bird flu) are still a cause of major disruptions.⁴ The situation is as volatile as ever and, yet, corporate concentration in the food system has only continued unabated.⁵

In this report, we examine the state of corporate concentration in six sectors critical to agriculture: commercial seeds, pesticides, synthetic fertilisers, farm machinery, animal pharmaceuticals and livestock genetics. Corporate consolidation has increased in most of these sectors and four of them– seeds, pesticides, agricultural machinery and animal pharmaceuticals– meet the definition of an oligopoly, in which four companies control more than 40% of a market.⁶ Concentration can be even higher at the national level, as is the case with synthetic fertilisers. In livestock genetics, where publicly available information is scarce, we focus on poultry – the largest sector within the meat industry – and its extreme and long-standing levels of corporate concentration.

This report also highlights corporate investment in new technologies, like digital platforms, artificial intelligence (AI) and gene editing, which are likely to deepen corporate power in the food system. It also looks at how they are buying up smaller companies in newly relevant sectors, and forging alliances with Big Tech companies and other corporations in the food sector to expand their dominance from seeds to supermarkets.⁷

Concentration gives corporations more power to dictate prices and lobby policy makers. They can use this power to disrupt scientific research, block regulations that protect people’s health and the environment, and undermine democratic participation in the shaping of food systems.⁸ Concentration increases their ability to crush alternatives and ensure the expansion of a model of agriculture that is immensely profitable for them while being hugely destructive for people and the planet. The industrial food system is responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and it is the leading source of soil and water pollution and biodiversity loss.⁹ It destroys local food systems and economies, displaces peasants and indigenous peoples from their territories and forces them to migrate far from their homes. It is also built on the severe exploitation of workers.¹⁰

Actions are urgently needed to take down the monopoly power of these corporations and to get power back into the hands of the world’s food producers, workers and consumers.

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Commercial seeds and pesticides¹¹

The commercial seed sector refers to crop seeds (primarily proprietary field crop and vegetable seeds) sold via the commercial market and genetically modified crop traits. Farmer-saved seed and seed supplied by governments and public institutions are not included.

The pesticides sector includes herbicides, insecticides and fungicides which are different types of agrochemical products that target weeds, insects and fungi, respectively.

The slate of top companies in commercial seeds and pesticides are unchanged from 2022: BASF, Bayer, Corteva and Syngenta.¹² They control 56% of the global seeds market (Bayer alone accounts for 23% of it), and 61% of the pesticides market (see Tables 1 and 2).

Compared to 2020, the revenues of these companies have increased significantly. But for Bayer all is not as well as it seems. Battered by an 80% decline in its share price since acquiring Monsanto in 2018, it initiated a restructuring in 2023, laying off about 7,000 employees to cut costs.¹³ Bayer’s financial problems are a result of multiple failures in court where juries have agreed with plaintiffs arguing that the company’s Roundup herbicide caused their cancers. It settled many claims in 2020 through a US$10.9 billion payout, but some 58,000 claims are pending.¹⁴ In April 2025, it was reported that Bayer might stop manufacturing glyphosate if it does not obtain court protection in the US against these lawsuits.¹⁵

The seed corporations continue their focus on genetically modified crops, and have introduced some new varieties, such as Bayer’s shorter “smart” GM maize and BASF’s GM soybeans resistant to soybean cyst nematodes.¹⁶ They are also increasingly integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into their plant breeding. For example, Syngenta has a partnership with InstaDeep, a UK based company now acquired by the German biotechnology company BioNTech. The aim is to use AI technology to “learn the language of plant DNA” and make predictions on how different genetic sequences perform and how to alter their performance.¹⁷ Bayer claims that using AI to analyse genomic data has shortened breeding cycles from 5-6 years to only 4 months.¹⁸

Table 1. Top 9 corporations in the commercial seeds sector

Ranking	Company (Headquarters)	Sales in 2023 (US$ millions)	% Global market share ¹⁹
1	Bayer (Germany)²⁰	11,613	23
2	Corteva (US)²¹	9,472	19
3	Syngenta (China/Switzerland)²²	4,751	10
4	BASF (Germany)²³	2,122	4
	Total top 4	27,958	56
5	Vilmorin & Cie (Groupe Limagrain) (France)²⁴	1,984	4
6	KWS (Germany)²⁵	1,815	4
7	DLF Seeds (Denmark)²⁶	838	2
8	Sakata Seeds (Japan)²⁷	649	1
9	Kaneko Seeds (Japan)²⁸	451	0.9
	Total top 9	33,695	67
	Total world market²⁹	50,000	100%

Another rapidly growing area of investment is biological pesticides and fertilisers.³⁰ Biologicals (or bioinputs) describe a range of products derived from biological processes (as opposed to chemical synthesis), such as pesticides sprayed on crops or stimulants applied to soils to increase plant growth. But there is no standard definition, and regulations of these products are lax.³¹ According to industry estimates, the biologicals market is expected to grow to nearly US$22 billion by 2032, with an estimate of 1,200 companies engaged in the sector.³² All of the top pesticide companies are now heavily investing in it in order to ensure their dominance. Corteva, for example, recently bought up two biological manufacturers, Stoller and Symborg, while Syngenta signed a partnership with a Belgian startup to develop biostimulants.³³ Biologicals’ sales by Bayer amounted to US$214 million in 2022, while in 2023, Corteva reported US$420 million in sales and Syngenta US$400 million.³⁴

The top pesticide companies clearly state that their biological products are not meant to replace “traditional crop protection products” but, rather, to be used alongside them. Moreover, while the companies describe their biologicals as “natural products”, this can be misleading because the label is ambiguous and these products raise biosafety issues and can involve genetically modified microorganisms.³⁵

Biologicals are part of a larger move by the top pesticide and seed corporations into what they call “regenerative agriculture”. This refers to a vaguely defined set of practices that can also include cover cropping, reduced tillage, crop rotation, genetically modified seeds, biologicals, and digital agriculture. Corporations claim, without convincing scientific evidence, that their model of regenerative agriculture will sequester carbon into soils, among other benefits.³⁶ Corporate regenerative agriculture programmes ensure companies the extraction of valuable agricultural data from farmers, giving them a competitive advantage in the market.³⁷ The carbon credits generated by farmers are bought by companies that wish to continue their polluting operations and not reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Bayer sees a US$100 billion opportunity in the shift to regenerative agriculture through biologicals, agrofuels, digital agriculture and carbon farming.³⁸ The growing focus on regenerative agriculture is driving collaborations and partnerships across the industrial food chain. While Syngenta has partnered with Pepsico, McDonalds and Lopez Foods to promote regenerative agriculture, BASF has initiated a project to assess the feasibility of a ‘nature-market’ among soybean farmers in Brazil.³⁹

Digital technologies are central to corporate regenerative agriculture programmes. To derive commercial benefits from those, presumed impacts like reduced greenhouse gases and carbon sequestered in soils need to be measured at scale using digital tools. The top seed and agrochemical companies have their own proprietary digital platforms via which they obtain publicly available agricultural data, data from satellites, sensors, farm equipment, data from their own R&D wings and data that farmers share with these platforms.⁴⁰ In the case of Bayer, it extracts data from more than 89 million hectares across 20 countries that are subscribed to its Climate FieldView platform. Syngenta’s digital platform covers about 88 million hectares across the world.⁴¹ The top agribusiness companies’ digital agriculture technologies are inextricably linked to Big Tech’s cloud servers and databases.⁴²

The digital technologies that Big Ag are rolling out “assist” farmers in deciding when to plant their seeds, what type of seeds to use, how much and what kind of pesticides to spray. They claim to be able to predict disease outbreaks, measure soil health and even estimate yields. Farmers who are enrolled in these programmes have to adopt specific agricultural practices to be eligible to earn money from the production of carbon credits. These digital platforms allow corporations to effectively dictate agricultural practices and push their products on millions of hectares across the world.

Table 2. Top 10 corporations in the pesticides sector

Ranking	Company (Headquarters)	Sales in 2023 (US$ millions)	% Global market share
1	Syngenta (China/Switzerland)⁴³	20,066	25
2	Bayer (Germany)⁴⁴	11,860	15
3	BASF (Germany)⁴⁵	8,793	11
4	Corteva (US)⁴⁶	7,754	10
	Total top 4	48,472	61
5	UPL (India)⁴⁷	5,925	8
6	FMC (Germany)⁴⁸	4,487	6
7	Sumitomo (Japan)⁴⁹	3,824	5
8	Nufarm (Australia)⁵⁰	2,056	3
9	Rainbow Agro (China)⁵¹	1,623	2
10	Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical Co., Ltd. (China)⁵²	1,595	2
	Total top 10	67,982	86
	Total world market⁵³	79,000	100

Another emerging set of alliances in this sector is between commodity trading corporations and fossil fuel companies. For example, Corteva has a partnership to develop canola hybrids for agrofuels with Chevron, the multinational oil and gas company, and Bunge, one of the world’s largest commodity trading corporations. Corteva also has a joint venture with the UK oil company BP that will contract farmers in Europe and the Americas to grow mustard seed, sunflower and canola feedstocks for agrofuels for aviation.⁵⁴ In another example, Syngenta is collaborating with the US commodity trader ADM on research and commercialisation of low carbon-intensity oilseeds for agrofuels.⁵⁵

Synthetic fertilisers

Industrial agriculture is highly dependent on synthetic fertilisers. They are differentiated by the type of nutrient they contain: nitrogen in the form of urea, phosphorus (as phosphate) and potassium (as potash). These nutrients (and the fossil fuels used for nitrogen fertiliser production) are globally traded commodities, making the sector particularly vulnerable to price fluctuations and trade disruptions.⁵⁶

With a market value of US$196 billion, fertilisers is one of the most profitable sectors across the industrial food system, particularly at times of food price spikes.⁵⁷ The revenues of the top 10 companies were US$76 billion in 2023 (see Table 3), an increase of 57% compared to 2020.⁵⁸ And in 2022 they had been even higher, 130% more than in 2020.⁵⁹ The World Bank explained the spike in fertiliser prices as a result of high natural gas prices from trade disruptions.⁶⁰ But a study of Nutrien, Yara, Mosaic, ICL Group, CF Industries, OCP, PhosAgro, OCI and K+S found that they had generated these extreme profits in 2022 by taking advantage of the war in Ukraine raising prices above the increased cost of producing goods, and deepening the debt of farmers and entire countries as a result.⁶¹

The global fertiliser market is dominated by a small number of companies, and fertiliser production takes place in a small number of countries. Over 55% of global urea production occurs in four countries: China, India, Russia and the US. And only China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar account for 41% of nitrogen fertiliser exports. For phosphate fertilisers, 70% of world production and 61% of world exports are concentrated in China, Morocco, the US and Russia. Similarly, for potash fertilisers, Canada, Russia, Belarus and China account for 75% of world production and the first three alone are responsible for 77% of world exports.⁶² Many of the top fertiliser companies are based in these producer countries.

At a global level, the top 10 controls 39% of the total market. But this concentration increases when the market is considered by type of fertiliser or by country. For example, five companies, OCP (Morocco), Mosaic (US), ICL (Israel), Nutrien (US) and Sinofert (China) account for a quarter of the phosphate-based fertilisers market.⁶³ But in the US, Mosaic controls 60% of domestic phosphate fertiliser production and until recently 90% of the domestic market.⁶⁴ With potash fertiliser, just four companies– Nutrien, Mosaic, ICL and K+S– occupy 50% of the global market.⁶⁵

Fertilisers are a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the agriculture sector. Nitrogen fertilisers alone are responsible for one in every 40 tonnes of total global emissions each year.⁶⁶ There is thus growing international interest in reducing fertiliser use and, in response, the fertiliser companies are ramping up their greenwashing efforts. Like the pesticide companies, the fertiliser companies are investing in biofertilisers and biostimulants, and marketing these as “complementary” to their synthetic fertilisers, often through their digital platforms and carbon credit schemes.⁶⁷ Yara, for instance, which recently acquired the Italian organic-based fertiliser company Agribios, has a digital carbon farming platform called Agoro Carbon that is used by farmers on over 809,000 hectares in the US.⁶⁸

Yara and other fertiliser companies maintain that “green” energies can be utilised to produce nitrogen fertilisers, and thereby dramatically reduce emissions. Their main focus is on blue hydrogen, which is produced from fossil fuels but with carbon capture and storage (CCS), and on green hydrogen, which is produced using wind or solar energy. This is already opening up new markets, such as the inclusion of Yara’s “low-carbon” fertilisers in PepsiCo’s planned 2.8 million hectare regenerative agriculture projects in Latin America.⁶⁹ But there is growing criticism of the social and environmental conflicts associated with CCS projects, as illustrated by the case of the residents of Ingleside in the US who are opposing a plant planned by Yara.⁷⁰ And while the production of green hydrogen-based fertilisers is lower in its CO₂ emissions, nitrogen oxide emissions still occur on farms. Green hydrogen projects are also increasingly linked to land, water and energy grabs in the Global South.⁷¹

Table 3. Top 10 corporations in the synthetic fertilisers sector

Ranking	Company (Headquarters)	Sales in 2023 (US$ millions)	% Global market share
1	Nutrien (Canada)⁷²	15,673	8
2	The Mosaic Company (US)⁷³	12,782	7
3	Yara (Norway)⁷⁴	11,688	6
4	CF Industries Holdings, Inc, (US)⁷⁵	6,631	3
	Total top 4	46,774	24
5	ICL Group Ltd. (Israel)⁷⁶	6,294	3
6	OCP (Morocco)⁷⁷	5,967	3
7	PhosAgro (Russia)⁷⁸	4,989	3
8	MCC EuroChem Joint Stock Company (EuroChem) (Switzerland/Russia)⁷⁹	4,298	2
9	OCI (Netherlands)⁸⁰	4,188	2
10	Uralkali (Russia)⁸¹	3,497	2
	Total top 10	76,007	39
	Total world market⁸²	196,000	100

Farm machinery

Farm machinery here refers to manufactured equipment used in agriculture like tractors, haying and harvesting machinery and equipment used for planting, fertilising, ploughing, cultivating, irrigating and spraying. As farm equipment companies move towards digitalisation and automation, this sector can also include their proprietary digital platforms, drones, and robotic technologies.

In the farm machinery sector, the top four companies control 43% of the global market according to 2023 sales figures (see Table 4). Much of the focus of these companies is now on integrating AI and digital technologies – through partnerships and acquisitions – to allow for more precision, as they claim, in the application of seeds, pesticides and fertilisers.

In 2023, for example, John Deere acquired Smart Apply, a US precision spraying equipment company. It is developing a technology to reduce indiscriminate agrochemical spraying in vineyards, orchards and nurseries by sensing the size and foliage of individual plants and adjusting the agrochemical volume to be sprayed.⁸³ But while doing that, the technology will collect valuable on-farm data on pesticide application, canopy volumes, the number of trees, the health of individual trees, and other information to assess the profitability and productivity of the orchard or vineyard. Another technology John Deere is deploying, called See & Spray, uses cameras to detect weeds in farms. The company says this technology saved farmers from spraying approximately 8 million gallons of herbicide across over 400,000 hectares in 2024.⁸⁴ See & Spray is being utilised in a partnership John Deere has with Syngenta and the US-based company InnerPlant to develop genetically modified “sensor plants” (like cotton, soybeans and maize). The GM plants will send out signals when stressed by drought, pests or fertiliser deficiencies which would then be detected by See & Spray and then treated with Syngenta’s pesticides. Innerplant calls it “the most exciting GM trait since Roundup Ready”.⁸⁵

Syngenta also has a partnership with CNH Industrial to integrate its digital farming platform Cropwise with CNH’s farm machinery. This will likely give both corporations seamless access to the data accumulated by each other giving CNH access to Syngenta’s valuable on-farm data and Syngenta the opportunity to promote its products through CNH.

The farm machinery giants are also positioning their technologies to be part of regenerative agriculture and carbon farming programmes. John Deere, for instance, is partnering with Cargill’s regenerative agriculture programme RegenConnect to collect data on agricultural practices from farms, analyse if they fulfil Cargill’s sustainability criteria, and, eventually, buy and commercialise carbon credits.⁸⁶ Another example is the partnership between Kubota and Tokyo Gas to reduce methane emissions from rice cultivation in the Philippines. Under the project, Filipino farmers are told how to select seeds, manage soil and implement a rice-growing technique to reduce methane emissions, with the companies extracting data to create carbon credits for Kubota and Tokyo Gas.⁸⁷

Since the new machinery technologies under development require farms to have a high-speed internet connection, the farm machinery companies are partnering with telecom and satellite giants to expand rural internet connectivity. CNH, for example, is partnering with Telecom Argentina to expand internet connectivity across 500,000 hectares in Buenos Aires, while John Deere has a partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite telecommunications company.⁸⁸

Table 4. Top 10 corporations in the farm machinery sector

Ranking	Company (Headquarters)	Sales in 2023 (US$ millions)	% Global market share
1	Deere and Co. (US)⁸⁹	26,790	15
2	CNH Industrial (UK/Netherlands)⁹⁰	18,148	10
4	AGCO (US)⁹¹	14,412	8
3	Kubota (Japan)⁹²	14,233	8
	Total top 4	73,583	43
5	CLAAS (Germany)⁹³	6,561	4
6	Mahindra and Mahindra (India)⁹⁴	3,156	2
7	SDF Group (Italy)⁹⁵	2,197	1
8	Kuhn Group (Switzerland)⁹⁶	1,583	0.9
9	YTO Group (China)⁹⁷	1,493	0.9
10	Iseki Group (Japan)⁹⁸	1,057	0.6
	Total top 10	89,629	52
	Total world market⁹⁹	173,000	100

Animal pharma

The animal pharmaceutical industry includes medicines and vaccines, diagnostics, medical services, nutritional supplements (medicated feed additives), veterinary and other related services for animal health.

According to some estimates, global animal pharmaceutical sales totalled US$48 billion in 2023.¹⁰⁰ The main markets are the US (42.3%) and Europe (27.3%), where the largest companies in the sector are based.¹⁰¹ In 2023, the top 10 controlled 68% of the market, with the top four companies accounting for almost half of all sales (see Table 5).

Most animal pharma revenues are generated from pets, not livestock. In 2023, livestock accounted for 45.8% of the animal pharma market, down from 59% in 2020.¹⁰² But this varies by country. For example, in 2023, Zoetis’ products for pets accounted for 80% of 2023 sales in the US, 70% in Japan and 69% in China, while in Brazil, livestock products represented 59% of its sales.¹⁰³

Pets’ health has attracted players from other sectors, such as the US based Mars Inc., one of the world’s largest food companies. The corporation has been increasing its investment in the veterinary sector, and currently owns 3,000 veterinary clinics worldwide.¹⁰⁴ As it is a private company, its revenues are not made public, but according to Mars, 60% of its US$50 billion in sales in 2023 came from the Mars Petcare segment, which includes pet food and veterinary care.¹⁰⁵ Nearly half of Mars’ 150,000 workers are with its Mars Veterinary Health division.¹⁰⁶ The large retailer Walmart is also moving into this sector, building veterinary clinics inside its US stores.¹⁰⁷

Corporate concentration in this sector gives companies the power to exert strong pressure on governments to influence legislation in problematic sectors such as antibiotics. The global sales of farm antibiotics is valued at US$5.10 billion, with cattle accounting for near 40% of the use.¹⁰⁸ For years, the industry has defended the use of antibiotics in farm animals by linking them to faster growth, better health, and “feed efficiency”.¹⁰⁹ The problem, however, is that use of antibiotics in animals can lead to the emergence of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, including those critical to human health. Antibiotic resistance is already responsible for the deaths of 700,000 people around the world every year.¹¹⁰ Despite strong opposition from Elanco, Zoetis, Phibro and others, the European Union managed to reduce the overuse of antibiotics on farms, but widespread use continues in the US and elsewhere.¹¹¹

As industrial livestock is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 14.5% of total emissions according to the IPCC, animal pharma companies are trying to show they are taking climate action by developing drugs that can reduce emissions.¹¹² Elanco, for example, has won approval in the United States to market the drug Experior which claims to reduce ammonia gas in cattle.¹¹³ However, such techno-fixes can have only marginal overall impact, as livestock emissions occur across the whole industrial chain, from deforestation for feed crops, manure lagoons, to waste, to the use of fossil fuels throughout the production process.¹¹⁴

Table 5. Top 10 corporations in the animal pharma sector

Ranking	Company (Headquarters)	Sales in 2023 (US$ millions)	% Global market share
1	Zoetis (US)¹¹⁵	8,544	18
2	Merck & Co (MSD) (US)¹¹⁶	5,625	12
3	Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health (Germany)¹¹⁷	5,100	11
4	Elanco (US)¹¹⁸	4,417	9
	Total top 4	23,686	49
5	Idexx Laboratories (US)¹¹⁹	3,474	7
6	Ceva Santé Animale (France)¹²⁰	1,752	4
7	Virbac (France)¹²¹	1,348	3
8	Phibro Animal Health Corporation (US)¹²²	978	2
9	Dechra (UK)¹²³	917	2
10	Vetoquinol (France)¹²⁴	572	1
	Total top 10	32,727	68
	Total world market¹²⁵	48,000	100

Livestock genetics

The genetic material used in the industrial production of meat, dairy and aquaculture is supplied by a small number of relatively unknown companies that are mostly privately owned. As detailed financial data is not publicly available for most of these companies, it is difficult to determine companies’ market shares and even the value of the global market. However, it was possible to arrive at some estimates for chicken, which tops global meat production (narrowly exceeding pigs).¹²⁶

Corporate concentration is particularly acute with chicken. Just three companies dominate the poultry genetics market: Tyson Foods (US, public), EW Group (Germany, private) and Hendrix Genetics (Netherlands, private). Together, they supply more than 120 countries with breeds through licensing and distribution agreements or through their own farming operations.¹²⁷

Tyson and EW Group control the two main hybrid breeds used in most of the world’s industrial broiler farms (chickens for meat): Cobb (Cobb-Vantress) and Ross (Aviagen).¹²⁸ While Tyson does not provide a breakdown of sales from its genetics division, EW Group subsidiaries Aviagen Limited (UK) and Hubbard S.A.S reported sales of $252 million and $68 million respectively in 2023.¹²⁹

Both Tyson and EW Group operate in the US, Brazil and China, where 51% of the world’s chicken production takes place.¹³⁰ In the US, they supply the breeding stock for 98% of broilers, with Cobb-Vantress holding half of the market.¹³¹ In Brazil, the Cobb type accounts for 60% and Ross for 35% of all industrial breeds.¹³² China is still 70% dependent on imports of chicken genetics, with Cobb-Vantress and Aviagen breeding half of the domestic grandparent stock locally.¹³³ But the Chinese state and Chinese companies are working to break this dependency, particularly in light of the outbreaks of bird flu in the US. Three local companies, Sunner Group, Yukou Poultry and Xinguang Nongmu, now have nearly 30% of the market, with Sunner holding over 20%.¹³⁴ They have also started to export to countries such as Tanzania, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.¹³⁵

Global companies in the sector are looking at the African market for growth, where, in many countries, indigenous chickens still account for 80% or more of the chicken population.¹³⁶ In southern and eastern Africa, Tyson and EW Group’s Aviagen have merged with regional partners over the past decade, including cross-shareholdings. Some of the joint ventures are through companies registered in the tax haven of Mauritius.¹³⁷ In Zambia, which is increasingly used as a hub for chicken exports to the region, Tyson and EW Group dominate the entire market, holding 45% and 55% market shares, respectively. Zambian regulators found in 2018 that the genetics companies were coordinating to restrict the supply of breeding stock and increase prices, thus affecting smaller producers and consumers. Similar behaviour was found in the US, resulting in fines.¹³⁸

EW Group is also the top player in sales of genetics for chickens used for laying eggs (layer), through its subsidiaries Hy-Line International and Novogen S.A.S.¹³⁹ Second is Hendrix Genetics, owned by private equity firm Paine Schwartz Partners, with layer genetics sales estimated at US$274 million in 2023.¹⁴⁰ China is the main producer of eggs with 34% of global egg production, followed by the US, India and Indonesia with 7% each.¹⁴¹ Chinese reliance on imported grandparent layer breeders is also decreasing and is currently below 30%, but EW Group and Hendrix Genetics still supply genetics to several of China’s largest egg producing companies.¹⁴² In the US, EW Group and Hendrix Genetics not only have a monopoly on layer genetics, but also dominate the layer supply chain, through their control of hatcheries. In the recent ‘egg crisis’ that hit the country, there were allegations that the two companies colluded with dominant egg producers to keep prices high.¹⁴³

The focus on uniformity, scale and high yields makes the breeds of these companies highly susceptible to diseases. Even with strict biosecurity measures on farms, disease outbreaks still occur, as can be seen in the massive number of outbreaks of bird flu at industrial farms in the US and Europe in 2024 and 2025. In response, genetics companies are trying to breed chickens resistant to bird flu and other diseases using gene editing techniques, like CRISPR-Cas9.¹⁴⁴ For example, Cobb-Vantress co-funded research into the use of CRISPR to create chickens resistant to avian flu, which showed that multiple genetic modifications were needed to prevent “viral escape”.¹⁴⁵ Companies are also genetically modifying chickens for increased growth rates and sex sorting.

Illustrations: Andre M. Medina (@andre_m_medina)

Notes:

1Hope Shand, Kathy Jo Wetter and Kavya Chowdhry, “Food Barons 2022: crisis profiteering, digitalization and shifting power”, ETC Group, September 2022, https://www.etcgroup.org/files/files/food-barons-2022-full_sectors-final_16_sept.pdf

2For an understanding of the history of corporate concentration in the seed, pesticide, fertiliser and agricultural machinery sectors, see Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture. How a few giant corporations came to dominate the farm sectors and why it matters”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2025.

3See: SOMO, “Hungry for profits. How monopoly power tripled the profits of global agricultural commodity traders in the last three years”, 30 January 2024, https://www.somo.nl/hungry-for-profits/; GRAIN and IATP, “A corporate cartel fertilises food inflation”, 23 May 2023, https://grain.org/e/6988

4FAO, “FAO warns of ‘unprecedented’ avian flu spread, in call for global action”, 17 March 2025, https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/03/1161186

5Attempts towards mergers and acquisitions across the industrial food chain, like in commodity trading sectors, grocery retail, and food and beverage processing corporations continue full throttle. See: Bunge, “Bunge Shareholders Approve Viterra Combination”, 5 October 2023, https://www.bunge.com/Press-Releases/Bunge-shareholders-approve-viterra-merger; Jody Godoy, “Kroger’s $25-billion deal for grocery rival Albertsons blocked by US courts”, Reuters, 11 December 2024, https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-court-blocks-krogers-25-billion-acquisition-grocery-rival-albertsons-2024-12-10/; and Mars, “Mars to Acquire Kellanova”, 14 August, 2024, https://www.mars.com/en-in/news-and-stories/press-releases-statements/mars-acquisition-august-2024

6See: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/concentrationratio.asp

7Nina Lakhani, “‘They rake in profits – everyone else suffers’: US workers lose out as big chicken gets bigger”, The Guardian, 11 August 2021,https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/11/tyson-chicken-indsutry-arkansas-poultry-monopoly

8See: Corporate Europe Observatory, “Yara: Poisoning our soils, burning our planet,” 17 September 2019, https://corporateeurope.org/en/2019/09/yara-poisoning-our-soils-burning-our-planet; Corporate Europe Observatory, “Monsanto lobbying: an attack on us, our planet and democracy,” Undated, https://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/attachments/monsanto_v09_web.pdf; and Peter Waldman, Tiffany Stecker, and Joel Rosenblat, “ Monsanto was its own ghostwriter for some safety reviews”, Bloomberg, 9 August 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-09/monsanto-was-its-own-ghostwriter-for-some-safety-reviews

9C. Costa et al. “Roadmap for achieving net-zero emissions in global food systems by 2050”, Scientific Reports, 12, 15064, 2022: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18601-1; UNEP, “Driving finance for sustainable food systems: A roadmap to implementation for financial institutions and policy makers,” April 2023: https://www.unepfi.org/publications/driving-finance-for-sustainable-food-systems/

10ETC Group, “A long food movement: transforming food systems by 2045”, 29 March 2021, https://www.etcgroup.org/content/long-food-movement

11In this report, commas are used to separate thousands. Dots are used to separate decimals.

12Hope Shand, Kathy Jo Wetter and Kavya Chowdhry, “Food Barons 2022: Crisis Profiteering, Digitalization and Shifting Power”, ETC Group, September 2022, https://www.etcgroup.org/files/files/food-barons-2022-full_sectors-final_16_sept.pdf

13See: Chris Westfall, “Cutting middle management: Bayer’s costly experiment one year later”, 7 January 2025, Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2025/01/07/cutting-middle-management-bayers-costly-experiment-one-year-later/; Anonymous, “‘Broken’ Bayer needs bolder action”, Financial Times, 7 March 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/c1d9b0a6-2c25-4184-9a92-6d4ea13546bc; Bayer Annual report 2024, p. 2, https://www.bayer.com/sites/default/files/2025-03/bayer-annual-report-2024.pdf

14Brendan Piersen, “ Bayer must pay $78 million in latest Roundup cancer trial, jury finds”, Reuters, 11 October 2024, https://www.reuters.com/legal/bayer-must-pay-78-mln-latest-roundup-cancer-trial-jury-finds-2024-10-10/

15Patrick Thomas, “Farmers’ favorite weedkiller nears its end, Bayer warns”, 14 April 2025, https://www.wsj.com/business/farmers-favorite-weedkiller-nears-its-end-bayer-warns-324da1e6

16See: BASF, “BASF unveils Nemasphere nematode resistance trait, the new standard of nematode management for soybean farmers”, 10 June 2024, https://www.basf.com/us/en/media/news-releases/2024/06/basf-unveils-nemasphere-nematode-resistance-trait–the-new-stand; Bayer, “Short corn is smart corn”, 10 March 2025, https://www.bayer.com/en/news-stories/short-corn-is-smart-corn

17“How InstaDeep and Syngenta are accelerating crop trait discovery”, Shoots By Syngenta, undated, https://shootsbysyngenta.com/success-story-syngenta-and-instadeep

18Bayer, “Unleashing the Potential of AI”, undated, https://www.bayer.com/en/innovation/unleashing-the-potential-of-ai

19Percentages in the figure indicate the shares in the total, and may not tally due to rounding.

20Bayer Annual report 2023, p. 83. Includes: corn seeds and traits value (6,857), soybean seeds and traits value (2,571), cotton seeds value (575), vegetable seeds value (735). Total: 10,738 million Euros. https://www.bayer.com/sites/default/files/2024-03/bayer-annual-report-2023.pdf[Exchange rate: 1.081488].

21Corteva Annual report 2023, p. 3, https://investors.corteva.com/static-files/e34e5b8f-833c-4b8c-9222-6d57245db918

22Sources: Syngenta Annual report 2023, https://www.syngenta.com/sites/default/files/bond-investor-information/financial-results/financial-report-2023.pdf; and Capital IQ. Revenue for the Syngenta Seeds segment (including the sales of the subsidiaries in China). ChemChina figures are included.

23BASF Annual report 2023, p. 94, https://www.basf.com/global/en/investors/calendar-and-publications/reporting#item-1682409434284-1523096230[Exchange rate: 1.081488].

24Vilmorin & Cie Annual report 2022-2023, https://www.vilmorincie.com. Total revenue: 1,894.4 million Euros [Exchange rate: 1.047471].

25KWS Annual report 2023,(1 July 2023 – 30 June 30 2024),p. 2, https://mediamaster.kws.com/04_Company/03_Investor_Relations/04_Financial_Report/2023_2024/Q4/KWS-SAAT-Annual-Report-2023-2024-1.pdf [Exchange Rate: 1.081668].

26DLF Seeds Annual report 2023, p. 74, https://dlf.com/about-us/annual-report[Exchange Rate: 0.140732].

27Sakata Seeds Annual report, p. 1, https://corporate.sakataseed.co.jp/en/ir/library/shi2630000000cee-att/SAKATA20240712_summary_of_consolidated_financial_results_for_the_year_ended_may_31_2024.pdf

28Kaneko Seeds Annual report, (1 June 1 2023 – 31 May 2024), p. 1, https://kanekoseeds-p.jp/en/financial/pdf/Financial_Summary_20240531.pdf[Exchange Rate: 0.007323].

29S&P Global, “Revisiting seed company sales and profit”, FAO, 2024, https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0535a5cd-2373-414c-8758-2349227dd52e/content

30“Biologicals, a key building block in regenerative agriculture”, Bayer, https://www.bayer.com/en/agriculture/article/biologicals-building-block-in-regenerative-agriculture

31GRAIN, “Corporate bioinputs: Agribusiness’s new toxic trap”, 1 August 2024, https://grain.org/e/7175

32See: MarketResearch Biz, “Agricultural biologicals market”, 2023, https://marketresearch.biz/report/agricultural-biologicals-market/; The Mixing Bowl, “2023 Ag Biologicals Landscape”, 2023, https://www.mixingbowlhub.com/landscape/2023-ag-biologicals-landscape

33“Corteva Agriscience completes acquisitions of Symborg and Stoller”, Corteva, 2 March 2023, https://www.corteva.com/resources/media-center/corteva-completes-acquisitions-of-symborg-and-stoller.html

34GRAIN, “Corporate bioinputs: Agribusiness’s new toxic trap”, 1 August 2024, https://grain.org/e/7175

35Bayer, “Agriculture biologicals, innovation inspired by nature”, https://www.bayer.com/en/agriculture/agriculture-biologicals

36GRAIN, “Regenerative agriculture was a good idea, until corporations got hold of it”, 1 December 2023, https://grain.org/e/7067

37Hope Shand, Kathy Jo Wetter and Kavya Chowdhry, “Food Barons 2022: crisis profiteering, digitalization and shifting power”, ETC Group, September 2022, https://www.etcgroup.org/files/files/food-barons-2022-full_sectors-final_16_sept.pdf

38Gerson Freitas Jr, “Bayer sees €100 billion opportunity in cleaner-farming shift”, Bloomberg, 20 June 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-20/bayer-sees-100-billion-opportunity-in-shift-to-regenerative-agriculture

39See: https://www.syngentagroup.com/regenerative-agriculture; “McDonald’s USA, Syngenta and Lopez Foods collaborate to help produce beef more sustainably in the US”, Syngenta, 14 November, 2024: https://www.syngenta.com/media/media-releases/2024/mcdonalds-usa-syngenta-and-lopez-foods-collaborate-help-produce-beef-more; and Verena Kempter, “BASF and Solidaridad team up to empower Brazilian farmers to foster biodiversity”, BASF, 3 April 2024, https://www.basf.com/global/en/media/news-releases/2024/04/p-24-142

40“Bayer demonstrates digital technologies as a key enabler for regenerative agriculture”, Bayer, 9 November 2023, https://www.bayer.com/media/en-us/bayer-demonstrates-digital-technologies-as-a-key-enabler-for-regenerative-agriculture/

41See: Thomas Eickhoff, “New Frontiers in Digital and Carbon Farming”, Bayer, 20 June 2023, https://www.bayer.com/sites/default/files/2023-07/New%20Frontiers%20in%20Digital%20and%20Carbon%20Farming_CS%20Innovation%20Summit%202023.pdf; and “Syngenta Group reports record $33.4 billion sales and $5.6 billion EBITDA in 2022”, Syngenta, 22 March 2023, https://www.syngentagroup.com/newsroom/2023/syngenta-group-reports-record-334-billion-sales-and-56-billion-ebitda-2022#:~:text=The%20Group’s%20digital%20solutions%20have,$0.5%20billion%2C%20up%2081%20percent; Jonathan Shoham, “Digital farming and biologicals. Presentation to ABIM” S&P Global,

October 2023, https://www.abim.ch/fileadmin/abim/documents/presentations2023/ABIM2023_Session4_Digital_solutions_for_biocontrol_Jonathan_Shoham.pdf, pg.9.

42See: Hope Shand, Kathy Jo Wetter and Kavya Chowdhry, “Food Barons 2022: crisis profiteering, digitalization and shifting power”, ETC Group, September 2022, https://www.etcgroup.org/files/files/food-barons-2022-full_sectors-final_16_sept.pdf; ETC Group, “Behind sugar and spice and everything nice”, 9 May 2024, https://etcgroup.org/content/behind-sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice; GRAIN, “Techno feudalism takes root on the farm in India and China”, 24 October 2024, https://grain.org/e/7196

43Sources: Syngenta Annual report 2023, https://www.syngenta.com/sites/default/files/bond-investor-information/financial-results/financial-report-2023.pdf; ADAMA Annual report 2023, https://s201.q4cdn.com/536806127/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/2023-Adama-Annual-Report.pdf; and Capital IQ. Figures include Syngenta Crop Protection segment and ADAMA’s revenue [Exchange rate: 0.141316]. ChemChina figures are included.

44Bayer Annual report 2023, p. 160. Includes: herbicides value (5,926), fungicides value (3,444), insecticides value (1,596). Total: 10,966 million Euros. https://www.bayer.com/sites/default/files/2024-03/bayer-annual-report-2023.pdf[Exchange rate: 1.081488].

45BASF Annual report 2023, p. 93,https://www.basf.com/global/en/investors/calendar-and-publications/reporting#item-1682409434284-1523096230[Exchange rate: 1.081488].

46Corteva Annual report 2023, p. 3, https://investors.corteva.com/static-files/e34e5b8f-833c-4b8c-9222-6d57245db918

47UPL Annual report 2023, p. 401, https://www.upl-ltd.com/financial_result_and_report_pdfs/Da7CGgxBEBSh8KKSrznTRJFTNU3ahra0yEy0O8R4/UPL_Annual-Report_2023-24.pdf[Exchange rate: 0.012457].

48FMC Annual report 2023, p. 1, https://s21.q4cdn.com/968238644/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/FMC-Financial-Schedules.pdf

49Sumitomo Annual report 2023,(1 April 2023 – 31 March 2024), p. 18, https://www.sumitomo-chem.co.jp/english/ir/library/annual_report/files/docs/scr2024e.pdf. This figure includes Sumitomo’s Agrosolutions Business, Environmental Health Business, Feed Additives Business, and Pharma Solution Business [Exchange rate: 0,00700374].

50Nufarm Annual report 2023, p. 22, https://cdn.nufarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/08102711/Nufarm-Annual-Report-2023-FINAL_compressed.pdf[Exchange rate: 0.665986].

51Sino-Agri Leading Biosciences Co., Ltd., “Sino-Agri Leading Biosciences wins 4th place in Chinese Top 100 Pesticide Companies Ranking”, 24 May 2024,https://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail—50255.htm [Exchange rate: 0.141316].

52Sino-Agri Leading Biosciences Co., Ltd., “Sino-Agri Leading Biosciences wins 4th place in Chinese Top 100 Pesticide Companies Ranking”, 24 May 2024,https://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail—50255.htm [Exchange rate: 0.141316].

53S&P Global, “Revisiting seed company sales and profit”, FAO, 2024, https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0535a5cd-2373-414c-8758-2349227dd52e/content

54See: “Corteva Agriscience, Bunge and Chevron announce collaboration to produce winter canola to meet growing demand for lower carbon renewable”, Chevron, 14 March 2023, fuels https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/2023/q1/corteva-agriscience-bunge-and-chevron-announce-collaboration-to-produce-winter-canola; and “Corteva announces intent to partner with bp to develop low carbon intensity bio-feedstock”, Corteva, 18 November 2024, https://www.corteva.com/resources/media-center/corteva-announces-intent-to-partner-with-bp-to-develop-low-carbon-intensity-bio-feedstock-for-aviation-fuel-production.html

55“ADM and Syngenta Group sign MoU to support low-carbon next-generation oilseeds and improved varieties to meet growing demand for biofuels and other products”, Syngenta, 28 September 2023, https://www.syngenta.com/media/media-releases/2023/adm-and-syngenta-group-sign-mou-support-low-carbon-next-generation

56See: Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of industrial agriculture. How a few giant corporations came to dominate the farm sectors and why it matters”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2025; and AMIS, “Fertiliser series. #2/2024”, 2024, https://storage.googleapis.com/amis-9189b-strapi/1_AMIS_Fertilizer_series_Fertilizer_production_073a82c786/1_AMIS_Fertilizer_series_Fertilizer_production_073a82c786.pdf

57S&P Global, “Revisiting seed company sales and profit”, FAO, 2024, https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0535a5cd-2373-414c-8758-2349227dd52e/content

58Sinofert (China) and K+S (Germany) are not included in the table, but their revenues in 2023 (US$3,070 million and US$2,943 million respectively) are not far behind Uralkali (see: Sinofert Holdings Limited Annual report 2023”, https://www.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2024/0425/2024042502498.pdf; and K+S Annual report 2023, p.58,https://www.kpluss.com/.downloads/ir/2024/kpluss-annual-report-2023.pdf). For the figures for 2020, see: Hope Shand, Kathy Jo Wetter and Kavya Chowdhry, “Food Barons 2022: crisis profiteering, digitalization and shifting power”, ETC Group, September 2022, https://www.etcgroup.org/files/files/food-barons-2022-full_sectors-final_16_sept.pdf

59Source: Companies’ annual reports 2023 and Capital IQ.

60World Bank, “World Bank’s food for 10 billion podcast: fertilizer volatility and the food crisis”, 22 July 2022, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/podcast/2022/07/22/fertilizer-volatility-and-the-food-crisis

61GRAIN and IATP, “A corporate cartel fertilises food inflation”, 23 May 2023, https://grain.org/e/6988

62See: UNCTAD, “15th multi-year expert meeting on commodities and development, 14-16 October 2024, Geneva”, 2024, https://unctad.org/system/files/non-official-document/monika-tothova_myem2024.pdf; and IFPRI, “Global fertilizer trade 2021-2023: What happened after war-related price spikes”, 5 April 2024, https://www.ifpri.org/blog/global-fertilizer-trade-2021-2023-what-happened-after-war-related-price-spikes/

63The estimate was made by looking at the phosphate fertiliser sales reported by companies in their annual reports for 2023. It was compared with global sales amounting US$54.6 billion (Globe Newswire, “8 key trends in the global phosphate fertilizer market”, 2 January 2024, https://www.agribusinessglobal.com/plant-health/npk/8-key-trends-in-the-global-phosphate-fertilizer-market/).

64As Jennifer Clapp explains, Mosaic deployed a strong lobbying effort in order the US imposes tariffs on fertiliser imports from Morocco and Russia in 2017. This gave Mosaic control over 90% of the phosphate fertiliser market. In 2023, the US lowered tariffs on Moroccan fertilisers and raised those on Russian phosphate fertilisers (See: Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of industrial agriculture. How a few giant corporations came to dominate the farm sectors and why it matters”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2025.

65According to K+2, its market share reached 10% in 2023 (K+S Annual report 2023, p. 37, https://www.kpluss.com/.downloads/ir/2024/kpluss-annual-report-2023.pdf).

66GRAIN and IATP, “A corporate cartel fertilises food inflation”, 23 May 2023, https://grain.org/e/6988

67See: Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of industrial agriculture. How a few giant corporations came to dominate the farm sectors and why it matters”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2025; and GRAIN, “Regenerative agriculture was a good idea, until corporations got hold of it”, 1 December 2023, https://grain.org/e/7067

68See: https://www.yara.com/knowledge-grows/growing-more-resilient-crops-with-biostimulants/; Yara Annual report 2023, https://www.yara.com/siteassets/investors/057-reports-and-presentations/annual-reports/2023/yara-integrated-report-2023.pdf; https://www.cropnutrition.com/biosciences/

69Sidhi Mittal, “PepsiCo launches regenerative potato farming programme”, 22 April 2025, https://www.edie.net/pepisco-launches-regenerative-potato-farming-programme/

70See: https://www.iobcwa.org/join-the-fight-stop-ingleside-ammonia-plant.html

71See for example: Inkota, “Green synthetic fertilisers: solution for soil, climate, water and communities or a dead end?”, 2024, https://www.inkota.de/sites/default/files/2024-12/greenfertilzer_discussionpaper_Final_%20ENG.pdf; and ODG, “The hydrogen trail”, 2024, https://odg.cat/en/publication/publication-the-hydrogen-trail/

72Nutrien Annual report 2023, https://www.nutrien.com/investors/financial-reporting. Includes: retail crop nutrients value (US$ 8,379 million, p. 52), nitrogen fertilisers value (US$ 2,450 million, p. 58), potash fertiliser value (US$3,759 million, p. 55), and phosphate fertiliser value (US$ 1,085 million, p. 60).

73The Mosaic Company Annual report 2023, p. 79, https://s1.q4cdn.com/823038994/files/doc_financials/2023/ar/2023-annual-report_final.pdf. Includes figures for net sales to external customers for phosphates (US$3,894.5 million), potash (US$3,203.1 million), Mosaic Fertilizantes (US$5,684.7 million). Excludes corporate, eliminations and other.

74Yara Annual report 2023, p. 229, https://www.yara.com/siteassets/investors/057-reports-and-presentations/annual-reports/2023/yara-integrated-report-2023.pdf. Includes the fertiliser and chemical products associated to the segments in Europe (US$3,634 million), Americas (US$5,555 million), Africa & Asia (US$2,489 million), Global plants & operational excellence (US$10 million).

75CF Industries Holdings Inc. Annual report 2023, p. 4, https://www.cfindustries.com/globalassets/cf-industries/media/documents/reports/annual-reports/cf_industries_2023-annual-report.pdf

76ICL Annual report 2023, p. 325, https://s27.q4cdn.com/112109382/files/doc_financials/2023/ar/20F-Final-2023_Accessibility.pdf. Includes potash value (US$1,973 million), phosphate solutions value (US$2,274 million), growing solutions value (US$2,047 million).

77OCP Annual report 2023, p. 16, https://ocpsiteprodsa.blob.core.windows.net/media/2024-04/Rapport%20Financier%20Annuel%202023.pdf. Includes fertiliser sales. [Exchange rate: 0.0987320919959963].

78Source: Capital IQ.

79Mineral fertilisers’ sales of MCC, EuroChem’s main production company (https://www.acra-ratings.ru/upload/iblock/a89/z8yg31w1fsja6k3hkxorny4m5t4jb7ay/20240724_EvroKHim_press_reliz_en.pdf). However, the groups figures may be higher as the Brazilian subsidiary Fertilizantes Heringer S.A. sales in 2023 amounted US$1 billion (source: Capital IQ).

80OCI Annual report 2023, p. 210, https://investors.oci-global.com/sites/default/files/2024-04/OCI-Annual-Report-2023-vf_0.pdf. Includes sales from nitrogen EU, nitrogen US and fertiglobe segments.

81Uralkali Annual report 2023, p. 9, https://www.uralkali.com/upload/iblock/196/i2noxv1ovukvqx4ipve8bwajxxxnjz5y/UralKali_annual_report_eng_full.pdf. The total sales figure may include some sales from other services and products not directly relevant to fertilisers.

82S&P Global, “Revisiting seed company sales and profit”, FAO, 2024, https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0535a5cd-2373-414c-8758-2349227dd52e/content

83John Deere, “John Deere acquires Smart Apply”, 14 July 2023, https://www.deere.com/en/news/all-news/john-deere-acquires-smart-apply/

84John Deere, “See & Spray™ customers see 59% average herbicide savings in 2024”, 18 September 2024, https://www.deere.com/en/news/all-news/see-spray-herbicide-savings/

85See: “Syngenta Group and CNH Industrial connect digital applications to better serve farmers”,Syngenta, 13 November 2023, https://www.syngentagroup.com/newsroom/2023/syngenta-group-and-cnh-industrial-connect-digital-applications-better-serve-farmers; and InnerPlant’s website here: https://innerplant.com/join-innercircle/

86Cargill, “Cargill Regenconnect® and John Deere announce collaboration to enable new revenue streams for farmers adopting sustainable practices”, 12 July 2023, https://www.cargill.com/2023/cargill-regenconnect-and-john-deere-announce-collaboration

87Kubota, “Joint demonstration project to reduce methane emissions from paddy fields in the Philippines”, 28 February 2024, https://www.kubota.com/news/2024/20240228.html

88John Deere, “John Deere announces strategic partnership with SpaceX to expand rural connectivity to farmers through satellite communications”, 16 January 2024, https://www.deere.com/en/our-company/static/john-deere-partnership-with-spacex/

89Deere and Co. Annual report 2023, p. 32. Includes: values for production and precision agriculture operations.https://s22.q4cdn.com/253594569/files/doc_downloads/2023/12/deere-company-2023-10-k.pdf

90CNH Industrial Annual report 2023, p. 53, https://www.cnh.com/-/media/CNHi/cnhicorporate/Investor-relation/financial_information/annual_reports/2023/2023-CNH-10-K.pdf?rev=-1

91AGCO Annual report 2023, p. 47, https://ar2023.agcocorp.com/downloads/AGCO_2023_Annual_Report.pdf

92Kubota Annual report 2023, p. 17, https://www.kubota.com/ir/financial/release/data/134q4e.pdf[Exchange rate: 0.007132].

93CLAAS Annual report 2023, p. 26, https://annualreport.claas.com/2023/assets/downloads/en/CLAAS_powerful_2023.pdf[Exchange rate: 1.067923].

94Mahindra and Mahindra Annual report 2023, p. 363, https://www.mahindra.com/annual-report-FY2024/index.html[Exchange rate: 0.012457].

95SDF Group Annual report 2023, p. 3, https://www.sdfgroup.com/media/SDF_Risultati_2023_EN.pdf[Exchange rate: 1.081488].

96Bucher Annual report 2023, p. 21, https://d3v9db8ug40up8.cloudfront.net/s3fs-public/2023_01_Bucher_Annual-report_2023_EN_1.pdf [Exchange rate: 1.113604].

97YTO Group Annual report 2023, p. 315, https://doc.irasia.com/listco/hk/firsttractor/annual/2023/ar2023.pdf

98Iseki Group Annual report 2023, p. 5, https://www.iseki.co.jp/global/cms/upload/pdf/ir/preset_material_2023_all_e.pdf[Exchange rate: 0.007323].

99World market estimate from VDMA (See: CLAAS Annual report 2023, p. 25, https://annualreport.claas.com/2023/assets/downloads/en/CLAAS_powerful_2023.pdf

100Zoetis internal estimates (see: Zoetis, “A best in breed growth strategy”, 43 Annual JP Morgan Healthcase Conference, 14 January 2025, https://s203.q4cdn.com/620628704/files/doc_events/2025/Jan/14/Zoetis-JPM-Healthcare-Conference-Presentation.pdf). See also: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/11/14/2980879/28124/en/Animal-Health-Global-Market-Insights-Report-2024-Featuring-Elanco-Zoetis-Phibro-Vetoquinol-Ceva-Merck-DSM-IFF-Danisco-Animal-Nutrition-Huvepharma-Dechra-Pharmaceuticals-and-Virbac.html

101CEESA, “The global animal health industry in profile 2023”, 2023, https://ceesa.eu/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=downloadpdf&pID=5543.

102See: CEESA, “The global animal health industry in profile 2023”, 2023, https://ceesa.eu/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=downloadpdf&pID=5543; and Hope Shand, Kathy Jo Wetter and Kavya Chowdhry, “Food Barons 2022: crisis profiteering, digitalization and shifting power”, ETC Group, September 2022, https://www.etcgroup.org/files/files/food-barons-2022-full_sectors-final_16_sept.pdf

103“Zoetis Inc. SEC 10-K Report”, Trading View, 13 February 2025, https://www.tradingview.com/news/tradingview:4eb76e64ed6be:0-zoetis-inc-sec-10-k-report/

104 https://marsveterinary.com/

105See: Callum Jones, “Love of animals and love of profit? Inside the $500bn pet boom”, The Guardian, 29 June 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/29/mars-pet-care-food-businesses; https://www.forbes.com/companies/mars/

106Luisa Beltran, “Candy maker Mars is the biggest vet provider in the country: Inside its sprawling operation”, Yahoo Finance, 14 January 2025, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/candy-maker-mars-biggest-vet-100000723.html

107Ross Kelly, “ Walmart to open own-branded veterinary practices “, 10 October 2024, https://news.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=210&Id=12320902&sx=269697569&n=3

108See: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/veterinary-antibiotics-market-report

109Mariano Enrique Fernández Miyakawa, Natalia Andrea Casanova, and Michael H. Kogut, “How did antibiotic growth promoters increase growth and feed efficiency in poultry?”, Poultry Science, Vol. 103, Issue 2, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2023.103278.

110Michaela Herrmann and Clare Carlile, “‘Narratives of delay’: how the animal pharma industry resists moves to curb the overuse of antibiotics on farms”, 20 December 2023, https://www.desmog.com/2023/12/20/narratives-of-delay-how-the-animal-pharma-industry-resists-moves-to-curb-the-overuse-of-antibiotics-on-farms/

111See: Kenny Torrella, “Why Big Pharma wants you to eat more meat”, 1 March 2025, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/401172/antibiotics-meat-pharmaceutical-industry-agriculture ;and Michaela Herrmann and Clare Carlile, “‘Narratives of delay’: how the animal pharma industry resists moves to curb the overuse of antibiotics on farms”, 20 December 2023, https://www.desmog.com/2023/12/20/narratives-of-delay-how-the-animal-pharma-industry-resists-moves-to-curb-the-overuse-of-antibiotics-on-farms/

112See: GRAIN, “Livestock and climate: the problem is the industrial system”, 1 October 2021, https://grain.org/e/6740; Kenny Torrella, “Why Big Pharma wants you to eat more meat”, 1 March 2025, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/401172/antibiotics-meat-pharmaceutical-industry-agriculture

113See: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/21/2025-01226/new-animal-drugs-approval-of-new-animal-drug-applications-withdrawal-of-approval-of-new-animal-drug

114GRAIN & Alianza Biodiversidad, “What does factory farming have to do with the climate crisis?”, 26 March 2020, https://grain.org/e/6435. “Techno-fix” refers to a technology addressing a social or environmental problem created by an earlier technological failure (see: Hope Shand, Kathy Jo Wetter and Kavya Chowdhry, “Food Barons 2022: crisis profiteering, digitalization and shifting power”, ETC Group, September 2022, https://www.etcgroup.org/files/files/food-barons-2022-full_sectors-final_16_sept.pdf).

115Zoetis Annual report 2023, https://investor.zoetis.com/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=17262173

116Merck & Co. Annual report 2023, https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000064978/4abbf601-f36f-4016-ae6f-a07650f3b571.pdf

117Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health, “Boehringer Ingelheim reports strong growth in 2023 and accelerates late-stage pipeline”, 16 April 2024, https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/us/media/boehringer-ingelheim-reports-strong-growth-2023-and-accelerates-late-stage-pipeline

118Elanco Annual report 2023, p. 59,https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001739104/244f001e-0ffe-47b9-9dd9-27728385becf.pdf

119Idexx Laboratories Annual report 2023, p. 48,https://www.idexx.com/files/10k20240222.pdf. Water and other sales excluded.

120Ceva Santé Animale Annual report 2023, p. 4,https://www.ceva.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/FINAL_CEVA_NFPS_23.pdf. [Exchange rate: 1.081488].

121Virbac Annual report 2023, p. 161,https://corporate.virbac.com/home/investors/financial-reports/2023.html. [Exchange rate: 1.081488].

122Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Annual report 2023 -2024, https://investors.pahc.com/financials/sec-filings/default.aspx

123Dechra Annual report 2023, (1 July 2022 – 30 June 2023),https://www.dechra.com/corporate/corporate-home[Exchange rate: 1.204523]

124Vetoquinol Annual report 2023, https://www.vetoquinol.com/en/publications?f%5B0%5D=publication_type%3AAnnual%20Report

125Sources: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/11/14/2980879/28124/en/Animal-Health-Global-Market-Insights-Report-2024-Featuring-Elanco-Zoetis-Phibro-Vetoquinol-Ceva-Merck-DSM-IFF-Danisco-Animal-Nutrition-Huvepharma-Dechra-Pharmaceuticals-and-Virbac.html; and Zoetis, “A best in breed growth strategy”, 43 Annual JP Morgan Healthcase Conference, 14 January 2025, https://s203.q4cdn.com/620628704/files/doc_events/2025/Jan/14/Zoetis-JPM-Healthcare-Conference-Presentation.pdf

126See: FAO, “World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2024”, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4060/cd2971en (p. 16); https://www.cognitivemarketresearch.com/chicken-market-report; and https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/eggs-market-108483.

127See: https://www.tysonfoods.com/; https://ew.group/es/growing-excellence-through-innovation-es/; https://www.hendrix-genetics.com/en/. They are also the main suppliers to major chicken producers such as JBS, BRF, CP Group, Shandong Yashgen and BRF (Tak, Mehrosh, et al., “Identifying economic and financial drivers of industrial livestock production. The case of the global chicken industry”, 2022, https://www.issuelab.org/resources/40548/40548.pdf).

128See: Sumayya Goga, Simon Roberts, “Multinationals and competition in poultry value chains in South Africa, Zambia, and Malawi”, August 2023, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375864070; Dani Sher, “Broiler chickens: Who are they and how long do they live?”, Farm Forward, 13 March 2023, https://www.farmforward.com/news/broiler-chickens/ ; and Simon Usborne, “The £3 chicken: how much should we actually be paying for the nation’s favourite meat?”, The Guardian, 24 November 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/nov/24/the-3-chicken-how-much-should-we-actually-be-paying-for-the-nations-favourite-meat

129Source: Capital IQ. Hubbard S.A.S is a subsidiary of Aviagen Group Holding, Inc.

130 https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/production/commodity/0115000

131United States District Court, Northern district of Illinois Eastern Division, “End-user consumer plaintiffs’ fifth consolidated amended class action complaint”, 2020, https://overchargedforchicken.com/assets/Docs/1.%20Redacted%20Fifth%20Amended%20EUCP%20Complaint.pdf(p. 114)

132Sumayya Goga and Teboho Bosiu, “Governance of poultry value chains. A comparative perspective on developing capabilities in South Africa and Brazil”, 2019, CCRED Working Papers Series 2019/10, https://www.competition.org.za/s/IDTT-2-Poultry-Working-Paper-9.pdf

133See: https://www.thepoultrysite.com/news/2025/03/china-expands-domestic-broiler-genetics-gain; https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/5fcbf357-eac5-4e22-84ce-ec0936d5fb52/content; https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/production/commodity/0115000; https://www.agripost.cn/2025/02/17/chinas-broiler-industry-in-2024-white-feather-broilers-gain-market-share-as-yellow-feather-chickens-decline/. Grandparent stock refers to primary breeding animals whose offspring (called parent stock) are the final generation of breeding birs. Then the offspring of the parent stock becomes the production animals used for chicken meat production and other poultry products (https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Poultry%20and%20Products%20Annual_Beijing_China%20-%20People%27s%20Republic%20of_CH2024-0108.pdf).

134See: Shen Weiduo and Zhao Juecheng, “Chinese homegrown poultry variety breaks decades-long monopoly by developed countries”, 23 July 2023, Global Timeshttps://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202307/1294882.shtml; “Domestic broilers expand market share in China – and head overseas”, eFeedLink, 13 January 2025,https://www.efeedlink.com/contents/01-13-2025/0d8ad06d-4c87-4922-8140-901d5b579a99-a001.html

135See: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202307/1294882.shtml; https://gov.uz/en/vetgov/news/view/40232; https://tribune.com.pk/story/2490756/china-exports-first-batch-of-broiler-eggs;

136 https://www.fao.org/poultry-production-products/production/breeding/en/

137For example, in 2017, Tyson Foods invested in Buchan Ltd, who owns the distributor Cobb Africa, based in Mauritius, and Irvine’s units in Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania (see: https://www.just-food.com/news/tyson-and-ex-ceo-donnie-smith-invests-in-african-poultry-business/?cf-view).

138See: Sumayya Goga, Simon Roberts, “Multinationals and competition in poultry value chains in South Africa, Zambia, and Malawi”, August 2023, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375864070; https://comesacompetition.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Website-Notice-MHM-Africa-Poultry-Final.pdf; https://www.cbh.africa/our-story/

139Hy-Line International’s revenue for 2023 is not available, but Novogen reported US$14 million (Capital IQ).

140See: https://www.hendrix-genetics.com/en/about/our-company/corporate-governance/; https://www.hendrix-genetics.com/en/about/our-company/; Basel Musharbash, “Fowl Play: How Chicken Genetics Barons Created the Egg Crisis”, 12 March 2025, https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/fowl-play-how-chicken-genetics-barons. [Exchange rate used to convert the company’s revenue from Eur to USD is: 1,081488].

141See: FAO, “World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2024”, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4060/cd2971en (p. 18).

142See: https://m.efeedlink.com/contents/10-03-2023/2bd8ee3b-3f18-4842-8948-c9a4018d9e08-0511.html#:~:text=China%27s%20poultry%20layer%20industry%20is%20partially%20reliant,the%20production%20capacity%20to%20produce%20twice%20the; https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/N-VWGnOKnRCCBiaNV8bZXA

143See: Basel Musharbash, “Hatching a conspiracy: A BIG investigation into egg prices”, 7 March 2025, https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/hatching-a-conspiracy-a-big-investigation; Basel Musharbash, “Fowl play: How chicken genetics barons created the egg crisis”, 12 March 2025, https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/fowl-play-how-chicken-genetics-barons; Farm Action, “Farm Action calls for an investigation into skyrocketing egg prices and restricted supply”, 12 February 2025, https://farmaction.us/farm-action-calls-for-an-investigation-into-skyrocketing-egg-prices-and-restricted-supply/

144 https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/animal-genetic-industry.asp

145Idoko-Akoh, A., Goldhill, D.H., Sheppard, C.M. et al. “Creating resistance to avian influenza infection through genome editing of the ANP32 gene family”. Nat Commun 14, 6136 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41476-3

Source: Grain

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Maasai demand Volkswagen pull out of carbon offset scheme on their lands

Published

3 months ago

July 24, 2025

witnessradio.org

Maasai Indigenous people in Tanzania have called on Volkswagen (VW) to withdraw from a controversial carbon credits scheme which violates their rights and threatens to wreck their livelihoods.

In a statement, the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA) denounced the “loss of control or use” of vital Maasai grazing grounds, and accused VW of making “false and misleading claims” about Maasai participation in decision making about the project.

Many Maasai pastoralists have already been evicted from large parts of their grazing lands for national parks and game reserves, with highly lucrative tourist businesses operating in them. Now a major new carbon-credit generating project by Volkswagen ClimatePartner (VWCP) and US-based carbon offset company Soils for the Future Tanzania is taking control of large parts of their remaining lands, and threatening livelihoods by upending long-standing Maasai grazing practices.

The Maasai have not given their free, prior and informed consent for the project. They fear it will restrict their access to crucial refuge areas in times of drought, and threaten their food security.

Ngisha Sinyok, a Maasai community member from Eluai village, which is struggling to withdraw from the project, told Survival: “Our livestock is going to be depleted. We will end up not having a single cow.” Asked about VW’s involvement in the project, he replied, “It is not a solution to climate change. It is just a business for people to make money using our environment. It has nothing to do with climate change.”

Another Maasai man, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, said: “They use their money to control us.” A third said: “Maasailand never had a price tag. In Maasailand, there is no privatization. Our land is communal.”

Survival International’s Director of Research and Advocacy, Fiona Watson, said today: “The carbon project that Volkswagen supports violates the Maasai’s rights and will be disastrous for their lives, all so the company can carry on polluting and greenwash its image. It takes away the Maasai’s control over their own lands and relies on the false and colonial assumption that they are destroying their lands — which is not supported by evidence.

“The Maasai have been grazing cattle on the plains of East Africa since time immemorial. They know the land and how to manage it better than carbon project developers seeking to make millions from their lands.”

VW’s investment in the project, whose official name is the “Longido and Monduli Rangelands Carbon Project”, is believed to run to several million dollars, and has contributed to corruption and tensions in northern Tanzania, according to MISA’s report on the project.

An adjacent project in southern Kenya, also run by Soils for the Future, is beset with similar problems, and has already sparked resistance from local communities.

Survival International’s Blood Carbon report revealed that the whole basis for these “soil carbon” projects is flawed, and unsupported by evidence. Survival documented similar problems with the highly controversial Northern Kenya Grasslands Carbon Project. That project suffered a blow in a Kenyan court and was suspended and put under review by Verra, the carbon credit verification agency, for an unprecedented second time.

Source: Survival International

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Seizing the Jubilee moment: Cancel the debt to unlock Africa’s clean energy future

Published

3 months ago

July 12, 2025

witnessradio.org

Africa has the resources and the vision for a just energy transition, but it is trapped in a financial system structured to take more than it gives. In this blog, we outline how debt burdens and climate impacts are holding the continent back, and looks at the role of institutions that shape the global financial order, like the World Bank, African Development Bank and IMF. As these institutions and governments meet in Seville for FfD4, we urge them to heed people’s calls for reform: cancel the debt, redistribute the wealth, and fund the just transition. — By Rajneesh Bhuee and Lola Allen

With 60% of the world’s best solar energy resources and 70% of the cobalt essential for electric vehicle batteries, the African continent has everything it needs to power its development and become a global reference point for sustainable energy production. That potential, however, remains largely untapped; Africa receives just 2% of global renewable energy investment. As the UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan warns, too many countries are forced to “default on their development to avoid defaulting on their debt.”

The cost of servicing unsustainable debts, layered with new loan-based climate and development finance, leaves governments with little fiscal space to invest in clean energy, health or education. In 2022 alone, African countries spent more than $100 billion on debt servicing, over twice what they spent on health or education. Add to this the $90 billion lost annually to illicit financial flows, and the reality is stark: more money leaves the continent through financial leakages (also including unfair trade and extractive investment) than comes in through productive, equitable and development-oriented finance.

These are not isolated problems. They reflect a financial system that has been built to serve global markets rather than people. Between 2020 and 2025, four African countries defaulted on their external debts, that is, they failed to make scheduled repayments to creditors like the International Monetary Fund or bondholders, triggering fiscal crises and, in several cases, IMF interventions tied to austerity measures. Pope Francis’ Jubilee Report (2025) and hundreds of civil society groups argue that these defaults reflect the deeper crisis of unsustainable debt. Meanwhile, 24 more African countries are now in or near debt distress. None have successfully restructured their debts under the G20 Common Framework, a mechanism launched in 2020 to facilitate debt relief among public and private creditors. The Framework has been widely criticised for being slow, opaque and ineffective. According to Eurodad, without urgent systemic reforms, up to 47 Global South countries, home to over 1.1 billion people, face insolvency risks within five years if they attempt to meet climate and development goals.

How debt undermines the just energy transition

Debt has become both a driver and a symptom of climate injustice. Countries that did the least to cause the climate crisis now pay the highest price, twice over. First, they suffer the impacts. Second, they must borrow to rebuild.

This is happening just as concessional finance disappears. The US has withdrawn from the African Development Fund’s concessional window (worth $550m), yet maintains influence over private-sector lending. It has also opted out of the UN Financing for Development Conference (FfD4), a historic opportunity to confront the injustice of our financial system. Meanwhile, European governments, though now celebrating themselves as defenders of multilateralism, played a key role in weakening the outcome of FfD4, slashing aid budgets, redirecting funds toward militarisation, and systematically blocking proposals for a UN-led sovereign debt workout mechanism. With rising insecurity and geopolitical tensions, these actions send a troubling signal: at a moment when global cooperation is urgently needed, many Global North countries are stepping back from efforts to fix the very system that is preventing climate justice and clean energy for much of the Global South.

A role for the AfDB?

The African Development Bank (AfDB), under incoming president Sidi Ould Tah , has made progressive commitments of $10 billion to climate-resilient infrastructure and $4 billion to clean cooking. Between 2022 and 2024, one in five (20%) of its energy dollars were grants, far exceeding The World Bank ‘s 10% and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) ‘s 3.8%. The AfDB has also backed systemic reform: for example, calling for Special Drawing Rights (SDR) redistribution, launching an African Financial Stability Mechanism that could save up to $20 billion in debt servicing, and consistently advocating for fairer lending terms.

Yet, even progressive leadership struggles within a broken system. Recourse’s recent research shows that AfDB energy finance dropped 67% in 2024, from $992.7 million to just $329.6 million. Of this, a staggering 73% went to large-scale infrastructure like mega hydro dams and export-focused transmission lines, ‘false solutions’ that bypass the energy-poor and displace communities. Meanwhile, support for locally-appropriate, decentralised renewable energy systems such as mini-grids, solar appliances, and clean cookstoves plummeted by over 90%, from $694.5 million to just $61 million, with only five of 13 projects directly addressing energy access in 2024.

Africa received just 2.8% of global climate finance in 2021–22, and what is labelled as “climate finance” is often little more than a Trojan horse: resource-backed loans, debt-for-nature swaps, and blended finance instruments that shift risk to the public while offering little real benefit to local communities. These mechanisms, promoted as “innovative” or “green”, often entrench financial dependency and fail to deliver meaningful change for energy-poor or climate-vulnerable groups.

Meanwhile, initiatives that could build green industry and renewable capacity across Africa are falling short in both scale and speed. Flagship projects, such as the EU’s Global Gateway, have failed to drive green industrialisation in Africa, and carbon markets continue to delay real emissions reductions, subsidise fossil fuel interests, and entrench elite control over land and resources.

Mission 300: Ambition or another missed opportunity?

In this constrained context, the AfDB and World Bank launched Mission 300, an ambitious plan to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030. Pragmatic goals like electrification are crucial, but the story beneath the surface of Mission 300 raises concern. Far from serving households, many projects under the initiative appear more aligned with export markets and large-scale energy users, echoing decades of infrastructure that bypasses those most in need.

Mission 300 can still be transformative, but only if it centres people, not profits. Energy access must begin with those who need it most: women and youth, especially in rural communities. Across Africa, many women cook over open fires, walk hours to gather fuel, and care for families in homes without light or clean air. This is not just an inconvenience, it is structural violence and policy failure.

Yet most energy finance still flows to centralised grids, mega-projects, and sometimes fossil gas (misleadingly called a “transition fuel”). These do little to address energy poverty. Locally appropriate decentralised renewable energy solutions, solar-powered appliances, clean cookstoves, and mini-grids can deliver faster, cheaper, and more equitable impact. Mission 300 must invest in such solutions, without adding to existing debt problems. It should support national policy design, for example, by ensuring that energy policy is responsive to women’s needs, making use of gender-disaggregated data and community consultation.

The Jubilee: A year for action

In a year already marked as a Jubilee moment, African leaders have demanded reform: including a sovereign debt workout mechanism and a UN Tax Convention to end illicit financial flows. Yet as AFRODAD has documented, these demands were blocked at the FfD4 negotiations by wealthy nations—notably the EU and UK—even as climate impacts grow and fiscal space shrinks.

This is not just about finance. It is about reclaiming sovereignty. The incoming AfDB president and all the multilateral development banks face a choice: continue financing extractive, large-scale projects that serve foreign interests, or invest in decentralised, gender-responsive, pro-people solutions that shift power and ownership.

Africa has the resources. What it needs is fiscal space, public-led finance, and global rules that prioritise people and planet over profit. The Jubilee call is clear: cancel the debt, redistribute the wealth, and fund the just transition.

Source: Recourse through LinkedIn Account Recourse.

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Oil palm tree growing in Uganda: The National Oil Palm Project is threatening to evict hundreds of smallholder farmers to expand its operations.

The 4th African Forum on Business and Human Rights: The African continent is lagging, with only a few member states having adopted the National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights.

Innovative Finance from Canada projects positive impact on local communities.

Over 5000 Indigenous Communities evicted in Kiryandongo District

Petition To Land Inquiry Commission Over Human Rights In Kiryandongo District

Invisible victims of Uganda Land Grabs

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Uganda is on a mission to plant over 40 million trees by October 3, 2025, a crucial step in combating the alarming decline in its forest cover.

The 4th African Forum on Business and Human Rights: The rapidly escalating investment in Africa is urgently eroding environmental conservation and disregarding the dignity, the land, and human rights of the African people.

Oil palm tree growing in Uganda: The National Oil Palm Project is threatening to evict hundreds of smallholder farmers to expand its operations.

The 4th African Forum on Business and Human Rights: The African continent is lagging, with only a few member states having adopted the National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights.

Innovative Finance from Canada projects positive impact on local communities.

Over 5000 Indigenous Communities evicted in Kiryandongo District

Petition To Land Inquiry Commission Over Human Rights In Kiryandongo District

Invisible victims of Uganda Land Grabs

Resource Center

Legal Framework

READ BY CATEGORY

Facebook

Newsletter

Subscribe to Witness Radio's newsletter

Trending

Subscribe to Witness Radio's newsletter